bipolyjack

It has been strange settling into the Elysium living space. The Aegis bunker hadn’t exactly been glamorous, but it had still been Soul’s first home and she’s sad to leave it behind even if the new place is at least as nice. Sometimes she finds herself just sort of pacing, browsing online in her mind and letting her feet wander the team’s new space.

That’s how she finds herself knocking on Jin’s door.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Jin pauses a round of Guitar Hero on an embarrassingly low score and comes to the door with the big plastic controller in hand. They’re not sure who they’re expecting to see on the other side, but Soul in an unzipped, oversized hoodie definitely isn’t it. “Oh, hey - hey.”

“Hi.”

Soul looks at Jin, not quite sure what she wants. Company or something, maybe. Feeling like she did when the team had first moved into the Aegis bunker.

“Hey. You, uh. Doing okay?”

Soul considers the question for a moment. “I think so. May I come in?”

Jin realizes they’re blocking her out in the hallway and steps aside. “Oh - yeah, totally, I was just - I grabbed Astin’s Playstation from the old bunker and, you know. You wanna play? Or is there like. Something on your mind?”

“I would like that, thank you. I am just trying to get used to our new home, I think.” Soul takes up the second controller and waits for Jin to sit again before planting herself next to them.

It’s kind of weird, to hang out with Soul one on one like this. For the two weeks Jin had been in the infirmary, during which they’d slept a lot and seen barely anyone, they’d done their best not to think too hard about what Soul might be doing, or thinking, or feeling, with mild to middling success. But with her sitting next to them on the floor, attention fixed on the tv screen Jin had leaned up against the wall, they’re having a tough time keeping a lid on the speculation. “So whatcha been up to? With Elysium, and, and whatever.”

Soul answers without looking away from the screen. “Orientation.” She fails to elaborate.

“You play ‘get down Mr. President’ this time?”

“Oh, no. It’s mostly been meetings.” Soul almost kinda smiles.

The two of them play without speaking for several minutes, buttons clacking on the controllers, before Jin gets up the gumption to say, “It’s like when we moved into the bunker, huh.”

“Mhmm. I miss that, I think. It was nice.”

“Yeah.” It was nice. Before all the shit went down, when they were still getting to know each other. Before Soul saw Jin for what they were: a motherfucker.

The round ends. Soul won. Jin goes back to the menu, picks “Heart Shaped Box” without really thinking. “You, like. Doing okay?”

Soul nails the first few notes before stumbling over most of the intro phrase. “Why do so many of the songs about love sound angry as well? Is love not a good thing sometimes?” The memory makes her gut sink, metaphorically.

“There have been a lot of changes recently.”

“Yeah,” says Jin again, because what else can they say to that? Soul’s scoring lower this time, and Jin remembers when she asked them about this song, about what it meant. Months ago, now. Funny how time passes different when you’re not going to class every day. How it starts to slip away from you. Though that could be the concussion talking.

By the time the third verse rolls around, Soul’s score is barely passing. “Does love make people angry sometimes?” She only notices she’s crying when her finger flickers out so bad she loses her grip on the guitar neck.

Jin sets their controller aside without bothering to pause the game. It fails them both out as Jin lays a hand on Soul’s flickering knee, second-guesses and pulls back, then lets it land again. “Aw, Soul, you’re - hey, I’m sorry.”

Jin hasn’t touched her in weeks, not since she broke up with them, which makes sense of course but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t missed it, hasn’t missed them. She lets herself cry and tilts over towards them, hoping to find a shoulder.

Oh no, Jin thinks, but lets her lean on them, puts an arm around her, draws her up against them, against their better judgement. “I’m sorry,” they say again, like it will change anything or fix anything or matter whatsoever, as if saying I’m sorry has mattered any of the other times they’ve said it, to any of the other people they’ve said it to. They’re not even sure which of their mistakes they’re apologizing for. Any of them. All of them.

Soul lets herself be drawn in. It feels good and familiar and she doesn’t stop crying but after a moment it does downgrade to a bad sniffle. Her face is pressed against Jin’s shoulder, and without really thinking about it, she whispers what she’s feeling. “I miss you.”

Dammit. “Yeah,” says Jin quietly, and lets their cheek rest on the top of her head, knowing they shouldn’t and doing it anyway, like always. “Same.”

Her arms have been pressed up between herself and Jin, and now Soul lets herself wrap around them. She feels like she should be thinking about what she’s doing. She doesn’t really want to though. She shifts her head, still pressed against Jin’s shoulder, but looks up towards their face.

Her eyes are so big and round, glowing purple. Jin gets lost in them for a hot second before taking hold of her arms and gently distangling themself, which is damn hard because it feels good to be held. They want that hug so bad. But they shouldn’t. “Soul, I thought you didn’t - I know you don’t want -”

Soul starts to let Jin move her arms, but after a moment she puts up a gentle resistance, not asserting herself necessarily but asking to stay. She knows she doesn’t know what she wants. “I do though.” They don’t have to kiss her, she’s not going to die if they don’t, but she does lean in hoping they won’t lean away.

“Soul,” they say, but it comes out so quiet, all air and no spine, and they still have a loose grip on both of her arms but they don’t stop her from holding onto them, and they let her mouth meet theirs, and they don’t exactly not kiss back.

Soul let’s herself sink into Jin’s kisses, clears her mind of anything but those and their arms around her. It’s easy. She’s missed them. “I miss you.” She doesn’t stop kissing them.

Fucking hell. Jin should stop her. Shoulda stopped her already, but they want it just as bad and their mouth remembers hers even though it’s been weeks because they’ve never kissed anyone else whose mouth is like Soul’s but god fucking damn it, they’re not together, they’re not together anymore, how did their hand wind up on her face? Shit, fuck.

There’s a moment, the briefest moment, when Soul almost pulls away, almost needs more time to think, but then something she does makes Jin gasp and both their hands start to wander and then it’s far too late for critical thinking.

---

Soul doesn’t want to stop, but the certainty that this has all been a terrible idea settles in suddenly and without room for argument. She feels herself freeze up against Jin and before she knows it she’s crying again.

“Aw, hey - hey.” Jin tries to lay a hand on her cheek, but she’s flickering so wildly their palm keeps clipping through. “Soul -”

She’s not sure what to do, what she wants. Her first instinct is to hug Jin tighter, find that comfort, and she does almost feel better for a second but then it just feels even more wrong. “I- I should not have . . .”

Jin doesn’t stop Soul from extricating herself because she’s right, she shouldn’t have, and Jin shouldn’t have let her. It’s just that Jin was alone in the infirmary and alone in that NutriTech cell and alone before they came to Porto Ouro and if there’s anything Jin has learned after all this shit, it’s that they’re not too great at being alone.

“Soul,” they say, and even to them it sounds guilty.

She wants to say something back, but she can’t even bring herself to make eye contact as she untangles herself from the sheets and grabs her hoodie off the floor.

“Come on, Soul, you don’t have to - it’s not -” Oh yeah, it's not what, fuckwad? That was an ill-advised hookup with an ex and you, at least, should fucking know better. Jin doesn’t reach for their clothes yet; just sitting up in bed feels like swimming through cold mud, almost like the nanobots are resisting their movements. They sit with their knees drawn up and watch Soul gather her hoodie into a bundle under her arm, because what are they gonna do, stop her?

Soul moves for the door, still trying to say something but not knowing what. She pauses just before she opens it, turns her head not quite far enough to see Jin in her peripherals. It’s not their fault, or maybe it is? It’ll be okay later, or maybe it won’t? She settles on saying nothing and leaves, grateful that there’s no one in the hall between her room and Jin’s.